Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

Seanez Set to Return, Could Wells Be Next?

Rudy Seanez, one of last year’s bullpen anchors, is expected to rejoin the Padres before Friday’s game against the Reds at Petco Park. The Boston Red Sox, who signed Seanez to a hefty contract following his career year, designated the veteran right-hander for assignment last week, clearing the way for his return to San Diego. Right-hander Scott Cassidy, effective early in the season, also will be back with the big club when rosters expand on Friday. Between those two and sidewinder Cla Meredith, the Padres and their fans can be grateful to the Red Sox for helping the Pads build a strong bullpen.

As for David Wells, rumors have him coming to San Diego for Triple-A catcher George Kottaras. I hope that this is wishful thinking on the part of Boston writers desperate to cast the Red Sox in a positive light to rabid fans and not a reflection of reality. If everything in this article is to be taken at face value, then I hope the Dodgers are able to land Wells for one of Matt Kemp, Andy LaRoche, or James Loney (preferably Kemp or LaRoche — I’d love to see those guys out of the division).

I get the whole “he plays in a big market on the East Coast so he must be better than anyone you can offer” angle they’re trying to work here, but I still don’t see how one month of a broken-down 43-year-old left-hander with name recognition is worth anyone’s top prospect. Peter doesn’t see it either. That said, if there’s one thing I learned from the Mark Loretta for Doug Mirabelli fiasco it’s that we cannot dismiss seemingly ridiculous rumors.

If the Padres were to make a deal for Wells, wouldn’t it make more sense to offer up one of the spare bats at Triple-A they don’t plan to use but who could come in handy? Jon Knott immediately leaps to mind. Heck, why not Terrmel Sledge or Jack Cust? <sarcasm>Moneyball’s all about walks, right?</sarcasm> Cust has plenty of those (137 in 131 games at last count).

I guess my first choice would be to see the Padres pick up Wells on the cheap. It’s possible the guy has enough left in the tank to be useful down the stretch as a replacement for the Chan Ho Park/Mike Thompson spot in the rotation. My second choice would be to see the Dodgers pay through the nose to get him. Ask me again in five minutes, and those could be reversed. Put it this way, as long as the Padres don’t give up a top prospect (e.g., Kottaras) to get Wells, I’ll be reasonably happy wherever he lands.

Also, he is relatively new to baseball and is still improving every aspect of his game (speaking of Kottaras, obviously). I’m not sure he was our best prospect, either. We actually have pretty good catching depth throughout our system.

What’s with the melodrama Mike? Geez. The sky is falling, Chicken Little.

San Diego has traded prospects David Freese, Cedric Hunter, Jared Wells, Jefri Carvajal, and Matt Antonelli to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In return, the Padres aquire the rights to broadcast Rick Sutcliffe outakes and two buckets of various balls and gloves.

Another way to look at this trade is that Kottaras was drafted way down from a small college, and we used him to bargain for one of the best big-game pitchers out there. There has been a lot of praise for the Pads’ pitching and complaints about the Pads hitting on this site, but other than the 3rd base disaster, Khalil’s injuries and Giles having an atypical year, I think we are very solid. Who would you guys have drafted or traded for better than the lineup we have for the money we have to spend?

1st – Agon – great pick up
2nd – farm system, bright future
SS – most teams would jump at the oppor. to grab Khalil
3rd – took a chance on Vinny and it failed; everyone, including experts around the league, thought Burroughs was our future. As the baseball gods say, “Oh, well.”
RF – A typical year from Giles and the Pads run away with the division
CF – huge pickup, D, speed, and and a bat (for a guy who nows plays for the Pirates)
LF – Roberts has been one of the best leadoff guys, plus we’ve got a myriad of other choices

the one thing that is unfortunate is that in order for Wells to count on the playoff roster, someone on the current roster will have to be demoted. I hope it is an arm maybe Doug Brocail or Manny Alexander or Mark Bellhorn. We’ll see.

Re 164: I agree. What’s done is done, let’s focus on winning the division and going deep into the playoffs. Peavy/Young/Wells make a strong top 3 for any playoff series, with Woody in reserve and Hensley in the pen. With Walker and Branyan third base is no longer a black hole and we even have some pop. If Greene can make it back for the playoffs I like our chances.

It’ll be interesting to see if we carry three catchers when we make the playoffs. When, not if.

re: 181 I agree completely…and I’m sure that the PTBNL is based on how Wells performs for the Padres. If he trips going down the stairs tomorrow and doesn’t pitch at all for us, the Red Sox get a bag of balls…but if he turns the time maching on and pitches like he has in the past…the Sox still might get Koterras, which is fine with me. He helps us get into and win a first round playoff series…I’ll trade a prospect who’s hitting .233 in Portland right now…

Hey Mark 0, if you could get a suberb 3B rental (let’s say Scott Rolen was available but he was a FA after the season) for the last month or two and all it costed was a starting pitcher w/ a mid-high 4 ERA w/ sub-.500 record, would you do that too?

And no, the PTBNL is not based on performance, it’s Kottaras. They just can’t announce it officially because he’s on the 40 man roster and wouldn’t get through waivers. They’ll complete the trade after the season’s over.

Oh, I forget to mention the starting pitcher is Peavy…

We all know Peavy is better than some of his numbers suggest. Likewise, Kottaras is not a .224 hitter (evn though that’s what he’s now hitting in his first taste of AAA).

Right, I agree with Peter on the cold, hard facts of this situation, not necessarily the analysis.

As I said earlier in the day, Players To Be Named Later are rarely, rarely, rarely players to be later determined. The team involved just don’t want to “name” them right now. It’s probably going to be Kottaras, because that’s what all the reports say.

Teams don’t trade David Wells or any other notable players any indecision about who they are getting in return, and that decision is not based on performance. That’s not how it works.

As for wether it’s a good trade — well, it happened a couple hours ago. Let’s see what Wells does. Let’s see what Kottaras does.

Hey, in case you didn’t know it (and I didn’t until just a few mins ago), the Padres are in the playoffs! That’s the “AZL Padres”, I’m talking about … they are the Padres’ “Rookie League” farm team … home of Cedric Hunter (whom you know all about if you read Peter’s PadresRunDown ) … check out the box score of their first playoff game … http://tinyurl.com/qv5dw … going on *now*!!!